Kosovo Parliament to vote demarcation deal with Montenegro

Today, Kosovo Parliament will hold an extraordinary session to vote on ratification of the border deal with Montenegro. This is the third time MPs are trying to vote the disputed deal after lack of consensus of ruling an opposition on its ratification. The EU representative Nataliya Apostolova, and US Ambassador Greg Delawie, say Kosovo must ratify a demarcation deal with Montenegro as a precondition for Kosovo’s citizens to freely travel within visa-free travel zone of Schengen.

Speaker of Parliament and chairman of the ruling party PDK, Kadri Veseli, says he is confident the demarcation with Montenegro will be ratified on Wednesday. “We are committed to European and Western orientation,” Veseli said on Tuesday evening in a televised interview. He hopes that Mps will reflect and finally ratify the deal. But opposition parties have rejected the 2015 agreement, saying that Kosovo would lose territory. Ruling coalition partners and international experts deny that would happen. Also the head of parliamentary group of PDK, Memli Krasniqi, during an interview with Epoka e Re, said he believes the majority will have sufficient votes to ratify the deal. He hopes the Draft Law on demarcation will be supported by some of the Vetevendosje or Srpska List MPs.

The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) fully supports ratification of the Agreement which was signed in 2015 while the LDK chairman Isa Mustafa was prime minister. The head of parliamentary group of the LDK, Avdullah Hoti, reiterated the vote in favour of ratification of the deal. “We fully support this agreement. This issue should have been concluded long time ago,” said Hoti. He also criticised opposition parties of the previous legislation, who, as he said, have violently opposed ratification of the Agreement which left Kosovo citizens isolated.

Srpska List representatives are conditioning their vote on demarcation with the establishment of the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities, as foreseen by the Agreement reached between Pristina and Belgrade during the EU-facilitated dialogue in Brussels.

International diplomats accredited in Kosovo, including the Head of the EU Office, Nataliya Apostolova, and US Ambassador Greg Delawie, met on Tuesday the Speaker of Parliament, Kadri Veseli, and urged Kosovo MPs to finally ratify the deal. The Parliament extraordinary session will be held only hours before the visit of the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who will be accompanied by the High Representative Federica Mogherini, and Commissioner Johannes Hahn.